PALS

❦

TAKE a hold now
On the silver handles here,
Six silver handles,
One for each of his old pals.

Take hold
And lift him down the stairs,
Put him on the rollers
Over the floor of the hearse.

Take him on the last haul,
To the cold straight house,
The level even house,
To the last house of all.

The dead say nothing
And the dead know much
And the dead hold under their tongues
A locked-up story.

More poems by Carl Sandburg

OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this: / You took little children away from the sun and the dew,

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell / me what is happiness.

Thousands of sheep, soft-footed, black-nosed sheep-- / one by one going up the hill and over the fence--one by

YOU will come one day in a waver of love, / Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,